And the oil goes. Basilicata withstood the blows of the crisis and returned to the economic levels of 2007. The extraction of hydrocarbons gave their substantial contribution in order not to fall definitively into depression. The Rcontribution of the Bank of Italy to the regional economy somehow it freezes the controversy over drilling and puts all those in the most extractive region of Italy who would like a moratorium in serious difficulty. Above all in the Val d'Agri where the companies oil are engaged in further research programs. The good regional data also concern manufacturing and the automotive sector. The other large industrial pole in the Melfi area.
In 2018, Basilicata experienced growth in investments. The centre-left council - it must be said - loser in the last elections to the advantage of the centre-right, had supported the businesses with various measures. Those were years in which the Region, compared with the rest of Italy, experienced a "more accentuated fall in added value in the recessionary phase and a more marked recovery in the subsequent period". Employment increased by 3% compared to 2017, even if the wave of migration towards the North and abroad has not stopped. At the regional macroeconomic level, the employment rate has remained substantially stable also in relation to the average values of the South. The widespread poverty levels in the two provinces of Potenza and Matera are stable. Even if these data must be read in relation to the active population and the recipients of minimum incomes and pensions.
It remains that oil and gas extractions help keep up the economy of the second smallest region of the South. The new regional government, according to the former Councilor for Productive Activities Roberto Cifarelli, however has not yet made concrete proposals to the social partners to raise or maintain employment and investments. The socio-economic situation of the Basilicata Region, referring to 2018, however, is particularly complicated for the President of the Region, former General of Finance, Vito Bardi. A situation inherited from previous regional governments and in some respects gangrenous over the years.
His coalition has launched a listening phase on the main economic and development issues, but the effects are yet to come. On oil exploration, Bardi has clear ideas. He is held back like the NO TRIV committees. "I have no intention of leaving new permits for other drilling," he said during the election campaign and repeated in the regional council. Instead, he wants a different negotiation of the royalties of the oil companies to be used in new infrastructures. New research, in compliance with environmental requirements and protection, of course, could increase the economic value that Bank of Italy has recognized in its report. But you know, political choices evaluate data in opposite ways.
